GUWAHATI: As the puja season got over and government undertakings in Assam selling handloom and handicraft items counted cash, they found Goods and Services Tax (GST) had left a huge hole in their profits. This is despite sales remaining ‘more or less unchanged’ but profit due to profits going down – blame it on GST. The Pragjyotika Assam Emporium in Guwahati, set up in 1969, is an Assam government-owned corporation dealing in traditional handloom, handicraft and jute products, besides tea. The outlet has been hit hard.
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Gyanendra Kumar Kalita, corporation manager said, “In the first three months post GST, customers refused to pay tax and even quarrelled. Sales dropped appreciably”.The corporation has 24 employees and its average per month sale is around Rs 30 lakh. Despite drop in profits, nobody has lost job yet. Most customers are tourists from West Bengal. The local customers are those attending seminars in Guwahati and school children who come buy traditional attire for functions at school. June to September is the lean period when inflow of tourists is less.
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“We buy the items from artisans as well and pay GST when products are purchased from commercial establishments. We sell them after adding GST and Central GST. It varies from 5% to 12%,” Kalita said.
The combined GST and CGST is 12% for machine-made handloom products and handicraft items and 5% for handloom items and tea. He said cane furniture has faced the brunt of GST. Pre-GST era, 12 sets of cane furniture were sold a year. It has slid to two on an average now.
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“For a set of cane furniture costing around Rs 25,000, a customer is required to pay 12% GST-CGST which comes to Rs 3,000. Many baulk,” Kalita said. He said artisans as well as outlets, both government and non-government, dealing in handloom and handicraft products, would survive only if the government exempted them from paying GST-CGST.
“In some states, the small scale artisans have been exempted from GST and CGST payment. If the artisans here get a similar facility, it will help sales,” he added. Meghali Das who sells handloom products from her home in Guwahati, said she was finding it difficult to recover money that she was paying as GST and CGST. “I buy raw materials from shops and pay the taxes. To recover the amount, I have been forced to hike the prices of my products. However, customers often get into arguments over the prices and refuse to buy. It’s killing me,” she said.